Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. You can read Dan's recent work here

The One Nation Labour balloon is punctured, drifting, and slowly sinking. Can it stay afloat long enough?

Labour is drifting. Not bobbing around on the slate-grey South Coast tide. But floating, rather aimlessly, through the sky. A giant, vibrant red, One Nation hot-air balloon.

Conferences have their own character. In particular, those conferences hosted by a party that senses it is moving towards power. There is an electricity. A tautness. People walk with purpose. Their voices crackle with confidence.

There is none of that here in Brighton. We have been in town less than 24 hours and there is already a sense of weariness. Even foreboding.

That’s because Labour knows its balloon is sinking. It’s not about to burst into flames, and suddenly plummet to the earth. But somewhere high above, the vast One Nation canopy has sprung a leak. The trajectory is slowly but surely downwards.

No one is more aware of that than the Labour leader himself. At the moment he looks like he cannot even raise the energy to be Zen-like. Instead, he looks like he’s just going through the motions. Family photo op: check. Jump on a pallet and speak to a small group of Labour activists in Brighton town centre: check. Give another evasive and uninspiring interview on Marr: check.

The activists are upbeat enough, energised in part by Labour’s commitment to repeal the hated Bedroom Tax, and in part by the possibility they may find themselves queuing for a cup of tea next to Chuka Umunna. Or his aide.

But the shadow cabinet, MPs and advisers are not in an upbeat mood. “It’s starting already,” said one shadow minister who had just finished reading a report in the Times of the latest infighting between Ed Miliband’s inner circle. “The courtiers are starting to move against each other. The blame game’s begun.”

In an attempt to mask the balloon's ominous descent, Labour officials have opted for a burst of frantic activity. Conscious of criticism that last year’s conference was a policy-free zone, this year policy after policy is being pitched overboard as ballast. Measures on immigration, domestic abuse and the minimum wage have all been unveiled. Dozens more are promised.

But at the moment, there is no thread binding them together. And decisions on most of the major policies, like Labour’s plans for a welfare cap or rail renationalization or a Euro referendum appear to have been deferred.

What’s also noticeable is how the core narrative from within the Labour inner circle is shifting. Last year, in Manchester, it was all about how the party was setting the agenda, how it was Ed Miliband who was in tune with the British public, and how the Tory’s summer omnishambles showed they were unfit to govern.

But sidle up to any advisor or MP here in Brighton, ask them, about Labour’s prospects, and the same two response are trotted out. Ukip and the boundaries will save us. Or they might save us. Or, they’d better save us, because the spectacle of Ed Miliband parroting “hard-working families” over and over for the next twenty months isn’t going to cut it.

And so the balloon drifts on; rudderless. Do balloons have rudders? Directionless then.

There is something intoxicating about being around a party that senses it on the brink of entering government. And there is something terrible about being in the vicinity of a party that knows its prospects of power have vanished, and is in the process of tearing itself apart.

But Labour occupies neither of those places. It’s the not knowing that is killing them.

“Ed could still make it,” one MP said to me, hopefully. From his vantage point he can see the safety of dry land. But he can also feel the balloon descending.

“The recovery may not feed through quickly enough for Cameron”, an advisor told me. “If people don’t feel it in their pockets we’ll win”. He too spies terra firma. But then I ask him about the opinion polls, every Labour MP's altimeter. “They could be better”, he concedes nervously.

Some of the passengers have started muttering that something needs to be done. But what can be done?

The course was set years ago. They know Ed Miliband is not one great speech or one big policy announcement away from finally connecting with the British people. If the voters haven’t warmed to him now, they never will.

They could throw him overboard, jettison some weight. But would that really make a difference? At the end of the day, Labour are basically at the mercy of the currents and eddies of political fortune.

And so they drift on. The Labour Party and their giant, directionless, One Nation balloon. Hoping for the best. But starting to prepare for the worst.